CHILDREN'S home manager Ray Brown says faith in the people of Scotland convinced him to vote Yes.

A FATHER last night told how agonised thoughts of having to explain his independence decision one day to his son drove him to one inevitable conclusion: “I’m voting Yes for my boy.”

Ray Brown, 34, residential manager of a children’s home in Ayr, decided to write down his referendum deliberations to try to convince himself and his wife Jennifer whether they should grasp the opportunities offered by Yes.

"During my wife’s pregnancy and long before my son made his entrance into the world and changed my life forever, the great weight of parental responsibility entered my thoughts frequently.

"He is now nearly a year old and is already beginning to make his presence felt every day. It is fair to say that I can tell already that he’s pretty determined, strong willed and, dare I say it, independent.

"Like any parent, I’ve thought a lot about how he will mature and develop and my aspirations for him. As he grows up, I want him to fulfil his potential, but to have fun.

"There are a lot of things in life that I cannot control, and this makes me uneasy. I know that I can only try my best and that there are areas where I must have faith in others.

"For example, when he goes to nursery, school and, maybe, college or university, there will be other people with a responsibility to educate him. In his everyday life he will learn a lot from making mistakes and I’m hoping to be around a while yet, but when I’m not, I hope to leave him with only the best of my character. The good bits. The best bits.

"I will be trying to encourage him to be independent and resilient to setbacks, to work hard to achieve the goals that he will have in his life.

"I will always tell him that he can truly achieve anything that he wants, and he will feel that his destiny is in his own hands, no-one else's. I am sure that you feel the same for your own children. Maybe even your children’s children.

"I’m going to make sure that he understands that our time on this earth is short and that he should strive to eke every morsel out of every day.

"Recently, like most Scottish people (and those who live here), I have been thinking about September 18 a lot. My thoughts today are focused solely on one aspect however. I have been considering what I will tell my son in years to come, if the people of Scotland vote against becoming an independent country. What will I say when he asks? Will he understand when I tell him that my vote had been different than the overall majority? Maybe, maybe not. How can I expect him to be an independent, strong, confident young adult, if the people of Scotland had come to a decision which, on the surface, would appear to lack these qualities?

"Maybe I could placate him by explaining how I’d imagine the majority No voters probably came to their decision. Maybe I could tell him that there were reports that our oil was running out, and that some big companies told us that they would leave Scotland in the event of a Yes vote. Or maybe I tell him that we couldn’t have been sure that we could keep the same currency or that we weren’t sure how the NHS might be affected. Will his face tell me that he agrees that these were valid reasons? Will they suffice?

"How will you explain a No vote to your children? Will you say that becoming independent was too risky? Will you say that there weren’t enough hard facts available in order to make an informed decision? Will our children look upon our decision as being sensible and will they thank us for protecting their futures? Or will they question their own ability to be independent in their lives?

"When they make their own important decisions in their lives about travelling, their education, their relationships, will they take the easy option, the safe option? Will they ultimately achieve all that they could have achieved in their life? Here is my take on how we make decisions.

"Our lives are all about decisions, some unimportant and some that are astronomically important, and most that are in the middle somewhere. We teach our children how to make decisions in their lives, and I suppose, how to ‘grade’ the importance of each decision. Some decisions demand no more than a moment’s thought. We go with our first instinct, which is, essentially, what we want. More important decisions are defined by the potential for the outcome to affect our lives negatively. When we feel that there could be long lasting implications and negative consequences as a result of our decision, we slow down, we take our time. We look more closely at the pro’s and con’s of our decision, as best we see them. We talk to others, whose opinions we respect and whose judgement we trust. We find out as much information as we can in order to make an informed decision.

"So when we think about one of the biggest decisions in our lifetime - Scotland’s independence referendum - what do we do? When we try to delve deeper, when we look more closely, all we can find is opinion.

"When we try to pore over the facts, all we find is a plethora of statistics, spun into accentuating the political point of whoever is providing them. There are so many disagreements over perceived ‘facts’ and conflicting viewpoints that it is nigh impossible to truly know where the land lies.

"Listening to politicians projecting their own case as to why you should vote their way does nothing but muddy the waters of our decision-making process again. Those in favour of an independent Scotland speak of wealth and prosperity and the brightest of futures. Those who want us to vote against independence, speak of our ‘family of nations’ and the potential negative consequences in relation to all things financial - currency, jobs and pensions to name but a few, hotly discussed topics.

"To help us with our decision it wouldn’t be right for us to hold weight on our personal opinions of the politicians themselves; that would be short-sighted and pointless. The long-lasting impact of this decision will outlive them (and us). When we are all long gone, our decision, and the altered future, will remain.

"So surely the only real choice that we have is to keep things the way that they are now. Why would we make a decision that will force a change where we don’t know what will happen?

"Why would we ever do that?

"The vast majority of us have a place to live, money to buy food and jobs that we can support our families. Why would we ever want to make a decision that forces a change that could affect all of that? If we decide to make a decision that changes things, it is essentially gambling.

"So why would we ever decide to vote Yes then?

"I have decided to vote Yes because I have faith. I have faith in myself to make my own small contribution towards making it work, to play my part. I have faith that our human capital in Scotland is our key strength. I vote Yes because our capabilities far outweigh our inadequacies. I vote Yes because I have faith in the people of Scotland to continue to invent, create, educate, and inspire. I have faith that in Scotland we make the right moral decisions, that our core beliefs are true. I have faith that Scotland can continue to contribute to the world, that we can truly be everything that we can be.